Bush wanted to avert criticism for campaigning in a public school, both the state GOP and the governor's campaign say, so he filmed the ads picturing him with children at Florida Christian School near Miami.

But Bush's move has only invited criticism from Democrats challenging his commitment to public education.

"The only refuge for him is the private schools,'' said Tony Welch, a spokesman for the Florida Education Association teachers union, which has endorsed a Democratic rival to Bush. "It's so fitting. We see this ad as fantasy."

In two 60-second ads -- a monthlong, statewide airing that started Tuesday and will cost the Republican Party of Florida more than $1 million -- the party is laying the groundwork for Bush's campaign as the "education governor."

"We believe we are taking control of the substance and tenor of the debate," said Todd Harris, campaign spokesman. "We believe that education is the governor's strongest issue."

VOTERS DON'T CREDIT BUSH

Opinion polling has targeted education as the runaway concern among voters, and surveys show few voters credit Bush with improving the public schools since his election in 1998.

"We're not there yet, but we're making progress," Bush states in one of the party's ads. "I want education to be Florida's highest calling."

"Parents are not happy with our public education system," replies Mo Elleithee, campaign manager for Janet Reno, a Democratic candidate for governor. "And apparently neither is the governor, if he had to film the ads in a private school."

In the ads, Bush appears with some recent Florida public school "Teachers of the Year" who have endorsed his re-election campaign.

In one ad, teachers tout Bush's increases in funding for public schools: In addition to nearly $2 billion over three years, Bush is proposing another $1 billion next year, a record.

"He has just barely kept pace with inflation," said Robin Rorapaugh, campaign manager for Democrat Bill McBride, the union-endorsed candidate. "We are continuing to see a drain. Parents know their kids are in crowded classrooms with overworked teachers."

In the second ad, with one teacher calling Bush "an educator at heart," the teachers and governor tout Florida's improving student performance.

"We're starting to see results," Bush says in the ad. "Children that have been told over and over again that they couldn't learn are now the ones that are leading the way in rising student achievement."

STATE STATISTICS INCOMPLETE

Yet, state statistics showing that minority children are reading better do not give the entire picture. The governor has boasted of fewer fourth-grade black and Hispanic children scoring poorly on the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test. But statistics have not included the test scores of more than 18,000 minority students, one of every 10 fourth-graders tested last year.

"No one is saying that we are done," Harris said. "But we are making improvements."

Still, in the setting of Bush's 16 mm film footage, the debut of the 2002 campaign season on TV, Democrats see a metaphor for neglected public schools.

Florida Christian, a private, nondenominational school, opened in suburban Miami in 1968, when public schools faced racial integration and private schools flourished.

With 1,300 children in prekindergarten through grade 12, the school charges $5,500 a year for high-school tuition and requires four credits in Bible study for graduation. It's integrated and mostly Hispanic.

"We're very much like Miami," said Katie Andrews, secretary at the school, which made sure no parents objected to any child being filmed.

Although Bush visited more than 200 public schools during his campaign in 1998 -- a record touted in one of the new ads -- his campaign maintains he wanted to avoid campaigning in one on TV today.

"We didn't want anybody carping about filming a political commercial in a public school," said filmmaker Mike Murphy, Washington-based media adviser to both Bush and the state GOP.

Asked about the Christian-school setting, Murphy said: "We don't think there is any message about any of that in the ad. It was just a matter of a classroom setting."

The GOP, which has raised more than $10 million this year, is paying for the ads statewide.

Ad buyers for rival Democrats estimate the month-long run will cost about $500,000 each in Miami, Tampa and Orlando, $200,000 in Jacksonville and more than $300,000 in smaller markets.

As the teachers union calls for the ads' removal, the Bush campaign insists they are "factual" and the show will go on.

"If he said what he says [in the ads] in a public school," the teachers union's Welch says, "the teachers and the kids would run him out."